Playing Pretend
by jesuisl0ser
Summary: It was a foolish, juvenile game. In the end, he would curse himself for being an idiot and covering up the reality of the situation—that he was alone in the apartment.


**A/N: Wrote this a couple of months ago and posted it on the LJ community illcoveryou. Wanted to share it with you guys here. I edited it a little bit. Hope you like it!**

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He would whisper her name in the middle of the night and liked to think that she was right there beside him, whispering back to him. Sometimes he'd even have conversations with her. He would tell her how much he loves her and misses her. He would ask her why she left him so soon. But at that point she would always disappear, leaving him with the sickening realization that he was alone again. It had become a ritual for him—falling into a restless sleep, waking up to find that his face is tear-stained and he's longing for the familiar touch of her fingertips on his shivering body.

She was gone. In fact, she'd been gone for quite a while. And Thomas B. Collins damn well knew it. He just had no intention of accepting it. He wasn't used to feeling this much alone. He had never been able to handle change well at all, let alone handling the loss of a person he loved so much. He'd heard someone say once that when you lose something, you end up gaining something, too. Collins wasn't sure what he had gained from his Angel's death besides a broken heart.

Of course, Collins knew he had his friends to help him out when he wasn't strong enough to handle everything on his own...but they had their own lives to deal with. Mimi was getting weaker with every passing day. She would be gone soon, too. Though it was horrible of him to think such thoughts, he couldn't help but feel jealous that when it was Mimi's time to go, she would be in heaven with Angel. But Collins had to wait. He didn't want to wait. But he knew he had no other choice but to live out the rest of his time on earth, however long it turned out to be, without her.

But it was always nice to play pretend once in a while. It was a game Collins learned to play when he was so lonely that it was literally causing him pain. He would go on throughout the day like she had never left—making two cups of coffee instead of one, when he knew he'd just have to throw the coffee into the sink or drink it himself due to the fact that no one else was really there to drink it. He'd turn down the bed at night and place two sets of pillows on the bed—one for him, one for her—even though he'd end up putting her set away in the morning, knowing that they had been left untouched throughout the whole night. He never even _dreamed_ of touching her makeup kits and nail polish in the bathroom. He left them where she had last touched them, knowing that they would be essential to her if she ever decided to come back to him.

It was a foolish, juvenile game. In the end, he would curse himself for being an idiot and covering up the reality of the situation—that he was alone in the apartment. But playing along with the game eased the pain. And that was why he did it. Surviving day by day seemed so much easier that way.

Seconds, minutes, days, weeks—they all had seemed to go by in a blur since Angel had left him. Time didn't matter to him anymore. All he thought about was her...Her eyes, her hair, her lips, her beautiful smile that could light up a room...her kiss that sent chills up and down his spine...her laugh that rang in his ears like a church bell ringing on a Sunday morning. All he could hear was her sweet voice, calling out his name. Even the simple thought of the fact that the tombstone he went to visit almost every single day read the name "Angel Dumott Schunard" made him sick. Sometimes he'd even spend hours sitting on the couch mumbling, "Angel...my Angel...my Angel...come back to me," over and over again. Yes, Tom Collins _did_ know that she was gone. But it was always so nice to play pretend.

Occasionally, others living in the apartment building would report hearing the voice of Thomas Collins echoing through the hallways in the night as he talked to the imaginary ghost of his lost love...

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**Review? Please?**


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